“How?” asked the young man. “Make haste, for I am in a hurry.”
“Well, in this way,” was the reply. “Take off your clothing, all of it; then I will take off mine. You place yours in a heap before me; I will place mine in a heap before you. Then I will put on your apparel as you wear it, and then you will see what a handsome fellow you are.”
The young man thought about it and concluded that it would be a very good thing to do. So he began drawing off his clothing—his beautiful painted moccasins, red and green; his fine white leggings, knitted with cunning stitches and fringed down the front, like the leggings worn by the Master of the Dances at New Year; his delicately-embroidered skirt, and mantle, and coat, all of white cotton and marked with figures in many colors; his heavy anklets of sacred white shell; his blue turquoise earrings, like the sky in blueness, and so long that they swept his shoulders; his plaited headband of many-colored fibers, and his bunch of blue, red, and yellow macaw feathers, which he wore in his hair-knot at the back of his head,—all these things, one after another, he took off and laid before the ugly old Tarantula.
Then that woolly, hairy, clammy creature hauled off his clothing—gray-blue, ugly, and coarse;—gray-blue leggings, gray-blue skirt and breech-cloth, gray-blue coat and mantle, nothing but gray-blue, woolly and hairy, ugly and dirty. When the old Tarantula had done this, he began to put on the handsome garments that the young man had placed before him, and, after he had dressed himself in these, he perched himself up on his crooked hindlegs, and said: “Look at me, now. How do I look?”
“Well, so far as the clothing is concerned, handsome,” said the young man.
“Just wait till I get a little farther off,” said the old Tarantula, and he straightened himself up and walked backward toward the door of his den. Presently he stopped and stood still, and said: “How do I look now?”
“Handsomer,” said the young man.
“Just wait till I get a little farther”; and again he walked backward, which is a way Tarantulas have, and stood up straight, and said: “How do I look now?”
“Handsomer still,” said the young man.
“Ah, ha! Just wait till I get a little farther”;—and now he backed to the very door of his den, and stood upon the lip of the entrance, and said: “Now, then, how do I look?”